Reasons for Induced Demand in the Health System: A Scoping Review

Induced demand is the provision of healthcare services to patients by the influence of healthcare providers. Induced demand causes excessive use of health services, increases the waiting time for receiving health services, increases the price of health services, increases the costs and reduces the efficiency of the health system. Policymakers and health managers should take measures to reduce induced demand. Hence, they should understand the reasons for induced demand in the health system. Therefore, this research aimed to identify the reasons for induced demand in the health system.

This research was carried out using the scoping review method. All published articles and documents about the reasons for induced demand in the health system until June 21, 2023 were searched in nine databases and Google Scholar search engine. Finally, 38 articles were selected and reviewed. The data were analyzed by thematic analysis method and using MAXQDA10 software.

Thirty-eight studies about the reasons of induced demand in the health system were published between 1974 and 2021. The number of researches in this area has been growing since 2011. Overall, 32 reasons for induced demand in the health system were identified and grouped into three categories: macro (health system), meso (health care organization) and micro (provider and receiver of health services). The most frequent reasons for healthcare induced demand in the literature include inappropriate policies, insufficient monitoring, inappropriate payment system, large number of physicians, lack of attention to clinical guidelines, financial motivation of healthcare providers, patient insurance coverage, unreasonable patients’ expectations, inappropriate price of health services, the complexity of the health service and patients’ inadequate medical knowledge.

Induced demand has negative effects on the health system and will lead to an increase in health costs, waste of health resources, a decrease in the efficiency of the health system, and finally, a decrease in people’s access to essential health services. Several factors at different levels of the health system lead to induced demand for health services. Therefore, interventions should be systematically applied at three levels of the health system, healthcare organizations, and providers and recipients of health services to prevent and reduce healthcare induced demand.